Chapter 5
Skuggaflog
Shaken by the startling images, Skjold raced across the rock-strewn shore to join Dvalinn and Haldor near the base of the stairs. “The snekkja approaches—cloaked in shadows,” he gasped, his voice ragged and raw.
“Skuggaflog,” Dvalinn hissed. “Shadow Wing. One of Skugga’s stealthy ships.”
Haldor scanned the western horizon, where the cold, violent sea crashed against the craggy cliffs. When a slash of sunlight broke through the steely sky, he shielded his keen gaze with a leather gauntlet. “Who is Skugga?”
“A Rus raider allied with the Dokkálfar.” Dvalinn stood between Haldor and Skjold, darting glances at both vitkar. “Enemy to Harald Bluetooth. And his son, Sweyn Forkbeard. The new King of Denmark and Norway.”
Skjold revealed the rest of his vision. “I saw a witch with crimson eyes. And a young woman trapped on the ship. We must save her from the Dokkálfar.”
At the mention of the accursed name, Dvalinn’s thick red brows furrowed into deep scowl.
“Beware the deadly weapons of the Dark Elves.” Dread deepened the dwarf’s foreboding tone.
“Even the nick of a Dokkálfar blade will prove fatal within three days—unless cleansed by a Ljósálfar healer. And we are far from the realm of álfheim.”
In the distance, a dark, ominous cloud arose over the open sea. “There’s the ship!” Skjold pointed to the eerie fog that crept toward Dvalinn’s cave like a spectral claw. “I’ll stay here, at the base of the cliff, to form a shield wall of frostfire. To burn them as they come ashore.”
“And I’ll summon the birds.” Clutching the ísfálkr spear like a vitki staff, Haldor raised his outstretched arms toward the cloud-strewn sky.
As his feathered cape flapped in the westerly wind like the wings of a falcon, a piercing shriek tore from his lungs and streaked across the stormy sea.
He shifted, unfurled his shimmering wings, and flew up to perch on the top limb of a nearby tree.
Dvalinn dashed up the stone steps, bellowing orders to those inside the cave.
“Raiders on the sea! Durinn, Dáinn, to the ledge—crossbows ready! Gunnar, Inga, bows to the arrow slits. Move!” Dvalinn positioned himself on the ledge in front of the heavy oaken door which led into his cave.
In one swift motion, he drew the warhammer from the leather belt at his hip, the runes along the blackened head gleaming in the dim grey light.
“Steinvegr!” he roared, the boom echoing off the mountain cliff, across the churning sea as he held the weapon high.
“Forged in the flames of the mountain’s heart!
” The Dwarven redbeard smirked at Haldor and Skjold, his garish grin revealing chipped and missing teeth, blackened by battle, forge smoke, and soot.
“Like Mjollnir, my hammer strikes hard and comes home to hand.”
The two apprentice dwarves—clad in leather armor reinforced with iron plates and engraved with runes—appeared on the ledge above the clifftop entrance to the cave.
Donning metal helms with noseguards, they secured the straps beneath their bearded chins before locking their crossbows and loading them with bolts.
As they knelt behind a lip of jagged stone, Skjold overheard one of the dwarves growl to the other.
“Hold. Let the shadows come closer. We strike when they show their cursed golden eyes.”
As darkness swirled across the stormy sea, and the raven prow emerged from the ominous cloud, the skies grew black as hundreds of seabirds, eagles, and hawks swarmed the snekkja ship.
Squawking and screeching in a chaotic storm of wings, the raptors dove like spear points from the sky, gouging eyes and slicing throats with razor-sharp beaks, talons, and claws.
As the frantic crew ducked, dodged, and shouted in confusion— panicked by the unexpected use of birds as weapons— some warriors dropped swords and axes to cover their faces, while others fell over the gunwale into the turbulent sea.
Arrows and crossbow bolts flew from the face of the cliff, tearing the blood striped black sail and embedding into exposed flesh of the frenzied crew.
A Dokkálfar on deck, covered in a dark cloak to shield himself from the intermittent sun, snarled orders to oarsmen who relentlessly rowed while archers loosed arrows and returned fire toward the cliff.
As the longship struck the shore with a heavy thud, the raven prow slicing into the grassy bank, Rus raiders vaulted from the deck, charging toward the cliff through the hail of arrows and diving birds.
Clutching his ísfir shield, Skjold brushed his right thumb over the Eldhrímr rune, unleashing a surge of frostfire as he rotated in an arc to encompass the base of the cliff, A high wall of blue flame, tinged with violet frost and silver ice, arose in a hiss of steam from the charred, scorched earth.
With the shield wall in place to defend Dvalinn’s cave, he maintained the torrent of frost and flame as Rus warriors charged toward the cliff.
Haldor swooped back down to earth, landing beside Skjold within the ring of fire. He shifted into human form, just as a sharp cry erupted, and Durinn tumbled from the mountain ledge, onto the scorched ground just beyond the wall of flame.
“Retract the fire on this side,” Haldor shouted, indicating where Durinn had landed. “So I can drag him back.”
Dvalinn scrambled down the stairs, Steinvegr clutched in his meaty fist. Desperate eyes locked onto his fallen kin, he dashed over to join Haldor. “I’ll go with you.”
Skjold touched the Kaldheimr rune to the left of the handle inside his shield, pointing it toward the crumpled body of Durinn. When the flame retracted, several Rus raiders swarmed toward the opening.
With a guttural roar, Dvalinn hurled his hammer, crushing a raider’s chest as the weapon returned to the dwarf’s hand. When Haldor pulled Durinn inside the wall of flame, the trio of droplets beneath Skjold’s left eye drew his gaze toward the enemy ship.
There, on the deck, was the young woman from his vision.
Defended by a Dokkálfar guard.
While Dvalinn heaved Steinvegr again and again, felling enemy attackers with lethal precision, Haldor dragged Durinn to safety, hollering to the Dwarven smith to come inside the ring of fire. When Dvalinn complied, Skjold rekindled the wall of frostfire flame to encompass the base of the mountain.
Dvalinn hurried to Durinn, who was crumpled in a heap on the hoar-covered ground. The wounded dwarf moaned in agony, an arrow protruding from the side of his left thigh, the weapon having pierced his leather armor between the reinforced plates.
Inga descended the stone stairs with herbs and bandages, rushing to help Dvalinn tend to Durinn’s wound.
Skjold shouted into Haldor’s ear, above the screeching of birds and the shrieking of maimed men. “The girl from my vision is tied to the mast of the ship. Guarded by a Dokkálfar.”
Fury flared in Haldor’s falcon eyes. He rose from Durinn’s side, crossed the rocky ground, and retrieved the Dwarven spear leaning against the base of the mountain below the cave.
He strode briskly back to Skjold, clutching the weapon like his vitki staff.
“ísfálkr never misses its mark,” he quipped, a snide grin curling one side of his bearded face.
“I will take out the Dokkálfar guard. But I need you to fire at the raiders storming up the beach.”
A spike of adrenaline surged through Skjold, beset by grim foreboding.
If he went with Haldor to fire upon the advancing enemy, he would have to retract the shield of flame, leaving Dáinn, Dvalinn, and Inga exposed.
He roared to Dvalinn behind him. “I must retract the shield. Hold them with Steinvegr until I return!”
He called back the frostfire with the Kaldheimr rune and hurtled toward the enemy ship with Haldor. As Haldor sighted his mark on the deck of the snekkja, Skjold unleashed a sizzling swathe of ice blue fire, engulfing the remaining Rus warriors in flames.
But as the Dwarven spear flew from Haldor’s hand, a Dokkálfar lurking near the spot where Durinn had fallen hurled a cursed knife which grazed the vitki’s arm mid-throw.
Skjold pummeled the Dark Elf with a blast of frostfire, reducing him to a heap of glowing violet ash.
On the deck of the snekkja, ísfálkr found its intended mark, impaling the Dokkálfar through the chest.
Petrifying him into stone.
Skjold rushed to Haldor’s side, relieved to see his mentor staunch the blood from his wounded arm with a strip of linen torn from the lining under his woolen tunic.
“It’s just a scrape.” He flashed Skjold a crooked smile. “Go free the girl.”
Skjold sprinted across the scorched battleground, where human corpses—victims of crossbow quarrels and arrows— cluttered the black rocks splattered with blood and salt spray from the sea.
As he neared the shore, he spotted the petrified forms of several Dokkálfar, turned to stone by Durinn and Dáinn’s Dwarven bolts.
And the crushing blows of Dvalinn’s Steinvegr hammer.
Skjold climbed aboard the ship, palms up to indicate he came in peace as he slowly approached the young woman tied to the mast. “I will not harm you.” His tone was gentle and reassuring, as if he were calming a frightened horse.
She was young— no older than he— her limbs shaking from exhaustion, terror, or cold.
A heavy woolen cloak of deepest blue, fastened under the neck, draped her pale lavender gown.
Her shoulders were slumped forward, awkwardly pulled by the short length of the rope which tightly bound her wrists.
The harsh sea winds had whipped her long blonde hair, the tangled locks tumbling down her arms, onto the pinewood planks of the deck.
Sparkling with violet fire, her ice blue eyes blazed like the flames from his ísfir shield.
As a sliver of sunlight sliced through the dark clouds, the woman’s pale skin shimmered, nearly translucent, her ethereal aura lit from within.
“I am Skjold,” he whispered, withdrawing the knife at his waist and kneeling to cut her ropes. “What is your name?”
“Skadi. Like the Norse Goddess of Winter.” Her smiling eyes sparkled like sunlit snow.
“I will bring you inside,” he said, indicating the dwarf’s cave on the ledge of the cliff with a nod of his head. “Where you can warm yourself before the fire.”
When he sliced through the rough ropes, Skadi rubbed her wrists, the tender skin raw and tinged with blood.
“Thank you,” she murmured, as Skjold helped her to a stand, her legs wobbling while she regained her balance.
She gazed up at Haldor, who was watching them both, standing on the scorched earth charred by the ísfir shield.
“Who is that vitki? He flies as a falcon, and summons birds to attack from the skies. He killed my Dokkálfar guard with that spear…” she indicated ísfálkr, laying near the stone statue at her feet, “…and risked his life to save mine.”
“My mentor, Haldor Falk. Falcon of the Faroe Islands.” Skjold flashed her a proud, triumphant grin.
Skadi glanced up again at Haldor, her brow furrowing in concern. “You must take me to him.” Urgency laced her tremulous voice. “For he was wounded by a Dokkálfar blade. And I am a Ljósálfar healer.”